Rio
Rio is a 2011 American 3D computer-animated musical comedy film produced by Blue Sky Studios and directed by Carlos Saldanha. is based on the jungle book and its The title refers to the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, where the film is set. The film features the voices of Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, will.i.am, Jamie Foxx, George Lopez, Tracy Morgan, Jemaine Clement, Leslie Mann, Rodrigo Santoro and Jake T. Austin. It tells the story of Blu (Eisenberg), a male spix macaw who is taken to Rio de Janeiro to mate with a female named Jewel (Hathaway), a free-spirited macaw. The two eventually fall in love, and together they have to escape from being smuggled by Nigel (Clement), a cockatoo. The theme song, "Telling the World" was sung by Taio Cruz. Saldanha developed his first story concept of Rio in 1995, in which a penguin is washed up in Rio. However, Saldanha learned of the production of the films Happy Feet and Surf's Up, and changed the concept to involve macaws and their environments in Rio. He proposed his idea to Chris Wedge in 2006, and the project was set up at Blue Sky. The main voice actors were approached in 2009. During production, the crew visited Rio de Janeiro and also consulted with an expert on macaws at the Bronx Zoo to study their movements. 20th Century Fox released the film on March 22, 2011 in Brazil, and on April 15, 2011 in the United States. The film received generally positive reviews from film critics. Observers praised the visuals, voice acting, and music. The film was also a box office success, grossing over $484 million worldwide. The film was nominated for Academy Award for Best Original Song for the song "Real in Rio", but lost to the other nominee, "Man or Muppet" from The Muppets.http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/84/nominees.html Plot In Brazil, various exotic birds are smuggled out of the country. In Moose Lake, Minnesota, a crate with a male blue macaw hatchling falls out of a truck and is found by Linda Gunderson, who names him Blu. However, Blu is unable to fly and is ridiculed by two Canadian Geese named Chloe and Alice that frequent the outside of Linda's bookstore. One day, ornithologist Túlio Monteiro invites Blu and Linda to Rio de Janeiro on the condition that Blu, who is the last male of his species, mate with a female macaw. Linda accepts and they fly to Rio, where Blu meets a Red-crested Cardinal named Pedro and his Yellow Canary friend Nico. At Túlio's aviary, Blu meets Jewel, a fiercely independent blue macaw longing to flee into the wilderness. The macaws are captured by Fernando, an impoverished boy, and a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo named Nigel, both of whom work for a group of smugglers led by Marcel. Nigel tells the macaws that he vowed to smuggle exotic birds after his role had been replaced on a television program by a parrot. Blu and Jewel quickly escape Nigel and flee into a jungle. Fernando meets Linda and Túlio and tells them that Marcel forced him to capture birds, before cooperating with the two to find Blu. Meanwhile, Blu and Jewel meet a Toco toucan named Rafael, who offers to take them to his bulldog friend Luiz to remove their leg chains. He tries to teach Blu how to fly, before the three meet Pedro and Nico. Nigel hires a horde of thieving marmosets to capture Blu and Jewel. Pedro and Nico take Blu and Jewel to a bird's Rio-style party, where they perform a duet, but are attacked by the marmosets. Their bird friends fight them, then the five flee. Linda and Túlio are taken to the smugglers hideout. Marcel explains that he will use the Rio Carnival to capture Blu and Jewel. Meanwhile, Blu and the others meet Luiz, who releases the chain holding Blu and Jewel using his drool; and the two macaws decide to go their separate ways. When Blu and Rafael learn from Pedro and Nico that Nigel captured Jewel, they rush to the carnival to rescue her, while Linda and Túlio organize a rescue attempt for the birds ripoffs you then idea 'tom and jerry and lottie dottie chicken'. While Linda and Túlio pose as dancers in blue macaw costumes, Marcel uses Nigel to capture the birds. On board Marcel's Short SC.7 Skyvan, the macaws release the captive birds, but Nigel injures Jewel. Blu uses a fire extinguisher to send Nigel into the propeller of the plane's engine, and the smugglers flee. Unable to fly, Jewel slips out of the plane and falls towards the ocean. Blu jumps out of the plane to rescue her and he discovers that he is able to fly after Jewel kisses him. Later, Linda, Túlio, and Fernando heal Jewel and organize a sanctuary to protect the jungle from smugglers. Blu and Jewel raise three chicks together and celebrate with their bird friends, Nigel is ridiculed for his loss of feathers by the marmoset's leader Mauro, and the smugglers are sent to jail. Cast Animals *Jesse Eisenberg as Blu, a male Spix's macaw. He is socially awkward, domesticated, and clumsy. Blu was smuggled from Rio de Janeiro to Moose Lake and was adopted by Linda Gunderson as Tyler Blu Gunderson, living together for 15 years. However, he is unable to fly. *Anne Hathaway as Jewel, as a female Spix's macaw and desperately longs to escape to the rainforest. *George Lopez as Rafael, as a romantic Toco Toucan who has a fondness of Carnaval. *will.i.am as Pedro, a rapping Red-crested Cardinal who befriends Blu and gives him advice on how to attract girls. *Jamie Foxx as Nico, a close friend of Pedro. He is a Yellow Canary with a green and purple striped bottlecap as a hat and tambourine that loves to samba. *Tracy Morgan as Luiz, a bulldog who is Rafael's friend and a chainsaw expert who has a medical condition of drooling. *Jemaine Clement as Nigel, an evil Sulphur-crested cockatoo and the main antagonist. Nigel was formerly a television star, but after being replaced by a parakeet he developed a hatred of exotic birds and began to help capture them for his owner Marcel. *Bernardo de Paula as Kipo, a Roseate Spoonbill at the bird's funk party. *Francisco Ramos as Mauro, the leader of the marmosets. *Bebel Gilberto as Eva, a Keel-billed Toucan and Rafael's wife. She is tone-deaf. Humans *Leslie Mann as Linda Gunderson, Blu's human owner who discovered Blu after he was taken from Rio de Janeiro to Moose Lake and adopted him for 15 years. **Sofia Scarpa Saldanha, the director's daughter, voices the younger Linda. *Jake T. Austin as Fernando, an impoverished and orphaned Brazilian boy. He assists Marcel in capturing exotic birds. *Bernardo de Paula as Sylvio, an stocky security guard at Túlio's aviary. He is also a fan of the Carnaval festival and spends as much time as he can dancing the samba. *Rodrigo Santoro as Tulio Monteiro, an ornithologist from Brazil who suggests that Blu travel to Rio to mate with Jewel and Linda's love interest. *Carlos Ponce as Marcel, the leader of the smugglers and Nigel's owner who gives him difficult tasks which none of his partners can achieve. *Jeffrey Garcia as Tipa, a clumsy one of Marcel's henchmen. *Davi Vieira as Armando, one of Marcel's henchmen. Release The world premiere of Rio took place on March 22, 2011, at a Cinépolis theater in Lagoa, Rio de Janeiro. The United States premiere was on April 10, 2011, at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California, and was released throughout the country five days later. Since May 2009, it had been scheduled to be released in the United States on April 8, 2011, but in December 2010, it was rescheduled to April 15, 2011. Pixar Animation Studios cancelled the release of their planned 2012 film Newt because of the similarity of its plotline to Rio. Marketing In April 2011, Oreo announced its special edition Oreo cookies with blue cream in promotion of the film. The promotion included stickers inside each package of cookies. Two types of contest were also announced: first, by completing an album of stickers, consumers could win three movie passes and medium snack bar combos; second, by finding winning stickers in packages with prizes including a trip to Rio de Janeiro, backpacks, cinema passes for a year, and 3D glasses. The promotion ended on May 30, 2011. The promotion is available in Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia. On January 27, 2011, Rovio Mobile announced a partnership with 20th Century Fox to promote the film. The game Angry Birds Rio was released in March 2011 on the Android Market and the Apple App Store with 50 levels. Rovio released more levels throughout 2011. With the DVD and Blu-ray release, Rovio and 20th Century Fox announced that they were going to start selling Rio Plush Toys in the Angry Birds Online Store and the DVD and Blu-ray comes with a code for 15 Hidden Levels, along with 3 Angry Birds Rio Videos. Also, McDonald's ran a promotion with Rio toys in their Happy Meals. In February 2011, the MPAA gave the film a PG rating for "mild off-color humor". The producers, displeased by this rating, resubmitted an edited version of the film to the ratings board one month later, and the MPAA changed the film to a G rating. Home media As a tribute to the country where most of the story is set and where the director was born, Rio was first released for home video in Brazil, on both DVD and Blu-ray, on July 7, 2011. The North American release date was August 2, 2011, and the Australian release date was September 28, 2011. As of June 2014, a total of 12 million Blu-ray and DVD units had been sold worldwide. Rio is available in 4 different packages: a 4-disc "Party Edition" combination package (3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital Copy), a 3-disc "Party Edition" combination package (Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital Copy), a 2-disc "Party Edition" combination package (DVD and Digital Copy), and a single disc DVD. The "Digital Copy" included with the 3-disc combination package is a separate disc that allows users to download a copy of the film to a computer through iTunes or Windows Media Player software. The 3-disc combination package also comes with an hour of bonus features. Video games A video game based on the film was released on April 12, 2011, for the Wii, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, and the Xbox 360. Another game, Angry Birds Rio, was released in March 2011 for various mobile and desktop systems. Reception Box office Rio made $143,619,809 in North America, along with $341,015,951 in other territories for a total of $484,635,760 worldwide, becoming the 13th highest-grossing film of 2011 and the 107th highest-grossing film of all time. It was the first film of 2011 to pass the $400-million mark. North America Rio debuted with $39,225,962 during its opening weekend on approximately 6,400 screens at 3,826 theaters. It ranked No. 1 at the box office surpassing the other new wide release, Scream 4, which ranked #2. This was the highest-grossing opening weekend of 2011 that far, finishing the year at sixteenth. It also scored the largest opening weekend in April for an animated feature, and the sixth largest in April overall. On its second weekend (Easter weekend) it retained first place at the box office, dropping only 33% to $26.3 million, therefore surpassing that weekend's releases, Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family ($25.1 million), Water for Elephants ($16.8 million), and African Cats ($6 million), which ranked second, third, and sixth, respectively. Rio s income of $143.6 million made it Blue Sky's second lowest box office result at the time, surpassing only Robots,http://boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3165&p=.htm and the 18th highest grossing film of the year in North America.http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2011&p=.htm Other territories On its first weekend overseas (the weekend before its release in North America) it topped the box office with $54.9 million from 11,714 screens in 72 countries. On its second weekend it earned $55.4 million, still on top of the overseas box office and on its third weekend it remained at the summit of the box office, grossing an estimated $44.3 million. It therefore marked the second film that succeeded in topping the overseas box office three times in 2011, joining Tangled, although it is the only one that did it on three consecutive weekends. In Brazil, the film's main setting and Saldanha's homeland, Rio was the largest release ever with over 1,000 screens. Its opening weekend gross of $8.4 million was the biggest ever for an American film (surpassed one year later by Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted). On its second weekend it earned $7.2 million, falling just 14% from its opening. It then delivered the highest-grossing third weekend in history with $6.3 million (a 12% decline). Rio finished 2011 with a final gross of $36.8 million (R$68.7 million), the second highest income of the year after The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1. In Russia and the CIS, it topped the box office with $11.3 million during its opening weekend (including weekday previews), surpassing Tangled for the largest all-time opening of a non-sequel animated feature. It earned $24.7 million in total, marking the fourth largest animated film of all time. In Venezuela, it has earned $8 million, marking the second-highest-grossing film of all time behind Ice Age 3 ($11.6 million). In Uruguay, it is the fourth highest-grossing film of all time with $754,820 after Titanic ($2.1 million), Avatar ($1.1 million), and Ice Age 3 ($1 million). In Peru, grossing $3.8 million, it is the third-largest animated feature behind Ice Age 3 and Shrek Forever After, and the fourth highest-grossing film of all time behind these two and Avatar. In India, it grossed 10,000,000 in three weeks making the biggest animated opener ever. Critical response Rio received positive reviews from film critics. , review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes had scored a 72% rating, with an average rating of 6.4 out of 10, based on 145 reviews. The website's consensus is: "This straightforward movie hits great heights thanks to its colorful visual palette, catchy music, and perfect vocal performances." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has an average score of 63 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a mixed "C" rating. Gleiberman praised the animation in Rio and its music, and later went on to say that the film is "less a Pixar-level pleasure than a busy, frantic, and overstuffed dessert of a movie." Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times gave a positive review of the film. Sharkey wrote that the storyline is an "eco-sensitive variation of 101 Dalmatians with birds as prey", and praised the film for its comic action and the voices, as well as the visuals. Accolades Trivia *This is the first Blue Sky Studios film to be produced in a 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio; all of that company's previous films were produced in 1.85:1. *This is the first Blue Sky Studios' musical film *''Rio'' is the first Blue Sky Studios film to be musical. *The second Blue Sky Studios film to be rated G by the MPAA, after Horton Hears a Who!. **Prior to its theatrical release, the film originally received a PG rating, but instead it re-received a G rating one month later. *A Promotion on South America for Rio was made, it was Rio Oreo. *The film was a box office success, making over $470,000,000 worldwide. *DVD/Blu-Ray/Digital Disk Rio Trio Party Edition came out on August 2 in North America, July 7 in Brazil, and September 28 in Australia. *''Rio'' is the first film to pass the $4 million mark in 2011. *Robin Thicke was considered for the project, but he was scrapped. Neil Patrick Harris was supposed to voice Blu, but left the project. Even Kate Del Castillo were considered for the voice cast. *The movie has several elements similiar to Happy Feet (ex. both feature singing and dancing birds, the movie ending with the main male and female protagonist offspring being seen, and some rude humor early on). *The Rio video game for Wii, Nintendo DS, PS3, and Xbox 360, came out on April 12, 2011. *A Puzzle game was released on December 10, 2011 *''Rio'' is the second Blue Sky Studios film to have humans, after Ice Age. *This is Blue Sky Studios' 6th feature film. *This is the first Blue Sky Studios film to be released in April. **This is also the first Blue Sky Studios film to feature modern humans, the people in the first Ice Age film were Neanderthals, followed by ''Epic''. *This is the first Blue Sky Studios film to feature humans, (since Ice Age). *''Rio'' is the second Blue Sky Studios film in which the main character begins at a young age (the first was Robots). *This is the first and so far only Blue Sky Studios film to have the love interest kiss the main character. *''Rio'' is the second movie by Blue Sky Studios and 20th Century Fox to be turned into a franchise, after Ice Age, which currently has five films and six short films. *The idea for the film was conceived by the film's director, Carlos Saldahana, in 1995. It was originally going to be about a penguin being washed up on the shores of Brazil. But when Saldahana heard about "Happy Feet" (from Warner Bros. Pictures and "Surf's Up" (from Columbia Pictures, (two other films about penguins) he decided to change the plot to just what it is today, a macaw raised by a girl. *Wanda Sykes, who played a goose in this film, later voiced Granny in Ice Age: Continental Drift, one year later. Sequel Sérgio Mendes commented in January 2012 his nomination for Best Original Song, saying, that the film will most likely have a sequel, and that Carlos Saldanha is planning it to be released in 2014 three to four months before the World Cup which will be held in Brazil.http://my.entertainment.yahoo.com/news/sergio-mendes-says-rio-sequel-likely-155007113.html The plot of the sequel will tie into the 2014 FIFA World Cup, but the exact storyline has yet to be revealed by the film's producers.http://www.vulture.com/2012/01/rio-sequel-brazil-world-cup.html Carlos Saldanha and Sérgio Mendes, along with others, met with each other a week after the film was announced, on February 1, 2012 to reveal the synopsis of the film to one another.http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Rio-Sequel-Likely-Take-Flight-29054.html Sérgio Mendes will once again being creating new music for the sequel to the film, due to his Oscar nomination for his music in the first film.http://www.hitfix.com/articles/sequel-to-oscar-nominated-animated-hit-rio-in-the-works Saldanha revealed that no deal for a script or deals have been made with studios about the film as of yet.http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/22896/-rio-sequel-readying-for-2014 The sequel will be distributed by 20th Century Fox and animated by Blue Sky Studios.http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/news/a362486/rio-sequel-rumoured-for-2014.html A spokesperson from 20th Century Fox has said that no deals with actors have been made yet.http://www.toonzone.net/news/articles/40122/rio-sequel-in-the-works, and that the studio is interested in turning Rio into a franchise, which hints at further sequels.http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/01/25/rio-sequel/ On November 28, 2012, Don Rhymer, the screenwriter of the first film, died after a battle with cancer. Gallery Rio.jpg|Theatrical release poster External Links *Rio at the Internet Movie Database *Announcement *Trailer at YouTube *Sample Video Clip at YouTube *Another Trailer at YouTube *Rio Wiki References Category:Movies Category:Rio films Category:3D Category:Real-D 3D Category:G Category:G-Rated f [[Category:Musical Category:G-Rated films Category:2011 Category:Blue Sky Studios films Category:Blue Sky Studios Category:20th Century Fox films Category:20th Century Fox Category:Rio Category:Films directed by Carlos Saldanha Category:Films produced by John C. Donkin Category:Films produced by Bruce Anderson [[Category:Films produced by Lisa Marie Stet